Questions tagged [chess]
A puzzle related to chess, a two-player board game with white and black pieces of varying ranks.
698 questions
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Can you colour these chess pieces?
Here is a new little retrograde chess puzzle! In the position below, only kings and pawns remain on the board. Unfortunately, the lighting in the picture was so bad that the black and white pieces ...
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All black pieces are gone II
This recent puzzle inspired me to make a little follow-up along the same lines:
What is the minimum number of moves to reach this position?
Have fun solving this! :^)
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All black pieces are gone
What is the minimum number of moves?
Source: 1903 Miroslav Havel
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What was the first capture?
Here is a new little retrograde chess puzzle. This one is intended to be (genuinely) approachable - so if you've never tried to solve one of these yourself before, give it a shot!
In this game, not a ...
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Can you find the missing chess pieces?
I originally wanted to post a new retrograde chess puzzle today. But unfortunately, before taking the picture of the final position, I accidentally knocked some of the pieces off the board :( All I ...
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Unneighbourly circuit. Is there a closed rook tour on a 4x4 chessboard where the rook never moves to an adjacent square?
Place a Chess rook on an arbitrary square of a 4x4 chessboard. The rook is allowed to move horizontally or vertically but not to an adjacent square (that is, it must move at least two squares).
Is ...
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What was the checkmating move?
Once again, here is a new retrograde chess puzzle! Recently, I have been trying to build something interesting with all 32 pieces still on the board. In this attempt at that, White somehow comes out ...
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Chess Retrograde Analysis Chain of Captures
White gave black odds of both knights (white started the game without both knights)
Neither king has moved nor been in check
There is an unknown piece on h6, where was it two moves ago?
This is a game ...
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Retrograde Analysis Chess by Raymond Smullyan
Black's first move was d5.
The knight on f5 moved exactly 3 times
The black king never moved
The black queen also never moved
Prove that this position is impossible to reach in real game
Puzzle by ...
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Rooks on a 3-dimensional chessboard
𝑛 is the smallest number of rooks which can dominate an 𝑛 × 𝑛 chessboard.
By domination, we mean that all squares of the 𝑛 × 𝑛 chessboard are under attack by the rooks. Since we will be extending ...
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Turning circle of the (general) chess knight
Consider a zebra (2,3-knight). Verify that on a 4x6 board, it is not stuck in the center (either of c2,d2,c3,d3) but yet the chess board can be divided into 4 areas, and the zebra can't reach one area ...
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How many Ducks are needed to trap a Queen?
Duck chess is a popular variant on chess.com, but this question is not about it. Just borrow the cute ducks and its movement rule:
A duck piece can move to any vacant square on its move. It must move
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Nonattacking pegasi on the 12×12 board
There were two questions asked in quick succession about nonattacking nightriders and then camelriders on an 8×8 board. In both cases a "striping" argument provides a decent upper bound.
It ...
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How many non-attacking camelriders on a chess board?
Just one more fairy chess piece please...
The justifications are:
A camel is like a knight except that instead of moving in a 2x1 rectangle, it moves in a 3x1 rectangle. Note that, like a bishop, a ...
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Determine the chess knight’s tour of a 6x6 chessboard given some hints
A chess knight traversed a 6x6 chessboard and returned to the starting square after visiting all the other squares exactly once. Some of the squares still bear a trace of the knight's visit - the ...